


Bye, Baby, Bye

by macabre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. After leaving his family for the Californian coast, Sam has to go back home for the same reason he left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bye, Baby, Bye

**Author's Note:**

> AU - no hunting involved. Mary and John live, and Adam is their third son.

Everyone always thinks Adam is most like Dean, most like their father. Sam, the middle child, is much the outsider in his tight-knit family. This gives him some attention from his mother when he is young, but sometime after he starts high school he stops telling her about the books he reads or what he plans for the future.

When he tells them he is leaving for California after graduation, Dean reacts the strongest.

“God damn it, Sammy! I don’t see why you have to tear us apart like this. You should stay here, go to school here. Be with the family.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, sitting on his made bed with all his things in perfect order. His bags are already packed. Downstairs. Outside the garage door.

He hugs his brother tight because he’ll miss his loud music and constant scent of women’s perfume. Dean watches him walk out the door. He stands there watching.

His mother cries. His father looks too angry to speak. It’s Adam sitting quietly on the front step that chills Sam. For a minute, he expects a similar reaction to Dean’s, but then again, Sam always understands Adam better than anyone else.

Adam doesn’t say anything. Just watches Sam sling his duffle bag over his shoulder. Sam stands in front of him for a moment, just in case. But nothing happens.

Sam walks to the bus stop.

California is a lot of what Sam expected, and some things unexpected. He spends a lot of time hitchhiking, sitting on the sides of sandy roads. Sometimes there is a log or curb to cushion him; other times he lets the sand and rock get under his skin. He has sunburns by the second day.

He meets a blonde girl on the coast. She’s sweet; reminds him of his mother. He bums rides with her in the backs of vans across the state for a while. They sleep in the open air one night – on an abandoned stage another after clumsily playing guitar with other drifters.

But, as Sam realizes, they’re both drifters too, and they drift apart. Jess looks a little sad, but she seems convinced they should part because it’s what they’re supposed to do. Like there is a rulebook.

Sam is convinced he’ll see her again.

Once his hair touches his collar, Sam smiles in the first mirror he sees. His father would hate it. He thinks about calling home, to at least speak to his mom, but every time he finds a payphone his step doesn’t slow.

When he finally relents, he finds out it’s been almost a year already. His father yells, his mother cries, and Dean won’t talk to him. Adam isn’t there.

An older man gives Sam his dented bike. It squeaks and the brakes aren’t as sensitive as they should be, but Sam enjoys it. He doesn’t have to hitchhike as much, but the lack of a consistent roof, even in the paradise of California, eventually wears him down into working a semi-regular job.

He still doesn’t get any type of phone, so when he calls home many more months later, the full spectrum of home hits him. Sam misses it.

Mary is consistent: she pleads with her son to come back. John becomes oddly quiet and subdued during calls. Then Sam hears that Dean has taken off as well. He’s surprised, until he hears it has to do with a girl.

Sam’s few words choke off when Adam so much as breathes into the phone.

“Do you miss me?” His little brother asks.

And Sam knows the reason why he left.

Later that year, Sam realizes he slipped up on the last call. His mother calls him through work, not that he mentioned where it specifically was, but she calls every diner in the state working her way down. Good thing, because it is his fourth place that year.

Her voice is falsely strong. “Adam’s sick, baby. He needs you to come home now.”

When he gets home, Dean is back from wherever he was and is the last of the family to be tested for a match. He’s a negative, but Sam is not. Adam looks up at him, not for the first time, like Sam is the answer to every problem he has.

“You came back,” Adam says with a rugged voice. It has changed much since Sam left. The body has changed much, too thin, pale, with chills racking it.

“Of course I did.” Sam grabs his brother’s hand and holds on. Dean has the other hand, sitting far quieter than Sam is used to. Seems everyone has changed.

Their mother is crying. “Baby, before the operation they’re going to increase your radiation. But everything is going to be okay. Your big brother is back.”

Being home brings back all the feelings he missed in California, but Sam has never felt so displaced. He’s sleeping in his old bed, in his old room, in the house he grew up in. It’s right across the hall from Dean’s, who is still acting distant. The air in the house tastes stale.

Most surprising might be their father; John Winchester has mellowed out in the past year since Adam’s illness. When Sam appears in the hospital for the first time, he reaches out and greets his middle child like he’s a hero. Sam sees how bad things must be when he notices the tears in John’s eyes.

It’s not until after Adam’s second day of intense radiation that Dean sits on Sam’s bed next to him at home and decides to talk.

“He’s been waiting for you,” he says, refusing to look at Sam. “Since the day you left. Dad and I aren’t enough, and I knew that when you left. What it would do to Adam.”

He turns suddenly and grabs Sam by the collar of his shirt. It’s a stance to relay anger, but Dean just looks desperate. “I blame you for making him sick.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, although the hurt is quick and settles deep. He takes Dean’s hand the same way he took Adam’s.

“I missed you too.”

Dean pulls his hand away, but he relaxes next to Sam. “How long will you stay?”

“As long as I need to.”

Adam begins receiving Sam’s healthy bone marrow and blood cells a few days later. If possible, he looks even more miserable then than during radiation. His constant ache and fever are enough to deal with, but then he’s lurching uncomfortably trying to up heave nothing. He’s always cold.

After John pries Mary away for a night, Dean hovers by Adam’s bed. Adam is dosing for the moment, Sam barely awake in the chair next to him. He tells Sam he’s leaving and after a wave off, Dean very carefully kisses his little brother on the forehead.

When he leaves, it’s Sam’s turn. He slides into the small bed with Adam, rousing him and forcing a genuine chuckle from his mouth.

“You’re too fucking big for this bed!” Adam protests at the same time he’s sliding down Sam’s chest into a comfortable position. He sighs, a long one, and Sam startles, holding Adam closer, afraid it might be his last breathe.

But another one comes. Then another. The doctors have to give Adam more injections than they hoped, but Adam improves drastically a few weeks later. Sam stops getting out of bed with his brother when his mother comes in. She doesn’t comment on their constant close proximity. Dean doesn’t look fazed by it.

Respectfully, Sam tries to leave their father alone with Adam when he comes in. He’s been working hard to help cover medical expenses and doesn’t make it as often as he wants. Adam acts like it’s a real treat to see him when it happens.

After Adam moves out of the hospital, Sam moves back in officially. Just in Adam’s room. Mary doesn’t protest, thinks it’s better to have someone there in case Adam needs something. Sometimes Dean even piles in the little bed with them. In those moments, Sam realizes he feels happier than he ever did on the road. Which is exactly why he needs to leave again.

He’s let Adam hug him in bed all night. He’s kissed Adam back with equal or more enthusiasm. He’s let their infatuation take hold again. Sam half wishes his father would find them together and kick him out. It doesn’t happen, and Sam has to plan it the painful way.

Careful not to let anyone see, Sam packs his bags once more. He’s going to get a cell phone this time, in case Adam gets sick again. He doesn’t need to tell anyone that he’s going, they’ll know right away.

He just forgets one simple detail: that his brother always knew him better than anyone else. The night Sam picks to leave, his little brother lets him wiggle out of his arms and watches him exit the room with a long stare. By the time Sam is out the door, stopping by the living room to appreciate the familiar sight of his parents both snoozing in front of the TV, Adam is fully dressed with a similarly packed bag.

“Don’t think you’re going alone this time, do you?”

Sam kicks the dirt. He’s angry at his brother – for being sick, for making him love him, for asking too much. He feels it bubbling up, but he clamps it down his throat. He can’t yell at Adam. He never could. Never said no to him.

“You’re too sick.”

Adam smiles, shyly. Always the quiet one, except with Sam. “You saved my life. I think that makes you responsible for it.”

Sam can’t look at him. He stalks past his brother. “I can’t.”

A hand grabs his. “You can.”

Adam slides his hands onto Sam’s cheeks and holds his face. He smiles, skin still too thin and shallow. Sam can’t doubt the determination he sees, so this time when he leaves, he doesn’t leave alone. They take Adam’s car because at least it will be a roof over their heads if nothing else, and they follow route 70 all the way west.

 


End file.
